"That's what makes her a great heroine"

Inquisitr, Curbed, The Spaces, Messy Nessy or Apartment Therapy report that the Brontë Birthplace in Thornton is on the market:

The dream of many a literary aficionado has just come true as the childhood home of the Brontë sisters, located in the village of Thornton in West Yorkshire, is now reported to be up for sale. Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne Brontë were once born in the dining room of this house on 72-74 Market Street and the Brontë family lived here between the years of 1815 to 1820.
The house, which was originally built in 1802, has gone through many different incarnations over the years, having served as apartments and now enjoying a fresh new life in a cafe called, appropriately enough, Emily’s. Both Charlotte and Emily Brontë would probably be amused to learn that their former birth home is now a thriving and popular local cafe and coffee shop. As Charlotte penned in Jane Eyre, the heroine of the novel rather enjoyed her daily cup of coffee accompanied by bread. (Kristine Moore)

Brontëmaniacs rejoice! Not only can you sip tea in the dining room where literary lions Charlotte, Emily, and Anne were born—you can own it, too. The young Brontë sisters lived at 72-74 Market Street in the U.K. village of Thornton from 1815 to 1820. For many years, the Yorkshire home served as a museum on the sisters, who are famous novelists and poets known for their respective novels Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
The 1802 structure was transformed from an apartment building into a cafe and single-family home by its current owners, who are now looking to sell it for about £250,000 ($338,000). The cafe—named Emily’s—brings in about $66,000 a year and is open four days a week. (Barbara Eldredge)

Where better to curl up with a cup of coffee and copy of Wuthering Heights than at the childhood home of British writer Emily Brontë – now for sale as a café. (Betty Wood)

Broadway World UK interviews Sally Cookson, now that the National Theatre Jane Eyre production returns to London:

How did you approach Jane Eyre? 
We took the book and, as a company, all responded to the material. That means I'm not imposing my own interpretation, but really investigating what everybody in the room feels and thinks about this piece of literature. Everyone's ideas fed into the work. That takes a long time - often in you don't get that time. But it's a very rewarding way of working, because it gives everyone ownership.
Did you make some adaptation decisions beforehand?
I work very closely with a dramaturg or 'writer in the room'. Before rehearsal we go through the story, so for Jane Eyre it was Mike Akers. We filleted it and decided which episodes were in, the same for the characters. It's always a difficult process - I find it hard to get rid of anything. Mike's very good at that. We both agreed to focus on Jane's coming-of-age story, not just the Rochester romance.
So there's always a loose framework, and then in rehearsal we build on it or even dismantle parts of it if it's not working. But it's worth going in with some kind of structure, otherwise there's not enough time to explore. (...)
Finally, why do you think Jane Eyre is so enduring?
Those ideas about how to get the most out of life are still very resonant. Jane knows how to do it and she teaches us - how to figure out who you are, take action and take responsibility. That's what makes her a great heroine.
(Marianka Swain)

The Times reports that Richard Osman’s World Cup of Books kicks off today:

In today’s opening stages, fans of Jane Eyre are up against lovers of Catch-22, Beloved and Good Omens, while in the second round Little Women is drawn against The Lord of the Rings, Wuthering Heights and It. (...)
The first round of voting starts on Sunday at 7pm on Twitter at @Waterstones. You can choose your favourites from the first round throughout the day with our Twitter mini-poll at @thesundaytimes ­­­— the results will be shared with the organisers. (Sian Griffiths)

A Jane Eyre orphan calf in the Daily Mail; a nice gif collage of Jane Eyre 2011 on of heroes and heroines; The Sisters' Room posts about the recreation of Branwell's studio at the Parsonage.

Jane Signing in L.A.

Aline Brosh McKenna will be presenting and signing her (and Ramón K. Pérez) Jane graphic novel in L.A.:

Jane Signing
Aline McKenna
Sunday September 24, 2017 5:00 PM
Grove’s Barnes & Noble, Los Angeles

Join us when we welcome award-winning screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna (The Devil Wears Prada, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) to discuss and sign her graphic novel debut in this powerful reimagining of Charlotte Brontë's classic novel Jane Eyre, set in present day Manhattan, where luxury masks dark secrets. Jane learns that in the world of New York's elite, secrets are the greatest extravagance. 

Read More

Outlandish Coincidence

Keighley News highlights one of the November events at the Parsonage:

Sophia Tobin will head the creative writing session as part of the Brontë Society’s programme of events to mark 200 years since the birth of Branwell Brontë.
The workshop, called Every Object Can Spark a Story, will draw on the famous Brontë collection.
A spokesman for the event organisers said: “There will be a unique opportunity to see some items up close and then write prose or poetry inspired by the Brontë relics.
“It is suitable for beginners or more experienced writers.”
Sophia previously worked for a Bond Street antique dealer for six years, specialising in silver and jewellery. (Richard Parker)

Also in Keighley News a local education initiative:

Year-five children from St Joseph's Catholic Primary School in Keighley have visited the Haworth home of the legendary literary sisters and the landscape which inspired them.
The pupils took part in art and creative writing workshops at the Brontë Parsonage, with museum staff and artist Rachel Emily Taylor, a senior lecturer at Leeds Arts University. (...)
Year-five teacher, Ben Palmer, said: "The visit to Haworth began with a meander into the lives of the world-famous Brontë sisters and this was followed-up with some outdoor learning as the children drew on Emily, Anne and Charlotte's inspiration by venturing up to Haworth moors. It was this bleak landscape that led the children to explore the hardships of Victorian life."
Arts Council England provided funding for the project.
Sue Newby, learning officer at the Parsonage, said the venture had been "a great opportunity" for the museum.
"It's not only given us the chance to work with artist Rachel Taylor – exploring the intriguing identity of Heathcliff through artwork and poetry – but has helped us to reach local children who may not have visited us before," she added.
"There's such a wealth of stunning landscape and unique heritage that we have to share in Haworth – not to mention our museum, once home to the Brontës, the most famous and fascinating literary family in history. All on the children's doorstep!" (Alistair Shand)

Town & Country Magazine reports how the Brontë Birthplace in Thornton is up for sale:

The Brontë sisters' childhood home in Yorkshire, which in recent years has been renovated into a coffee shop called Emily's, is up for sale. (...)
While many changes were made to the Grade II structure (a designation in the UK used for historic buildings of particular importance), some original features still remain including the fireplace and timber staircase.
De Lucas is now selling the building and the business privately, and is reportedly hoping to get something in the ball park of £250,000 for them both. (Caroline Hallemann)

The Lancaster Guardian remembers how

Tunstall has a rich history, including the local church, St John the Bapstist, which the Brontë sisters attended in the 1820s for a year while attending the Clergy Daughter’s school in nearby Cowan Bridge.

The Guardian anticipates next week's best things to do

Following a rapturously received season at the National Theatre in 2015, and a UK tour, Sally Cookson’s innovative reimagining of Charlotte Brontë’s trailblazing Jane Eyre (described as “a picture of exultant feminism” by the Observer) returns to the same London venue. Featuring imaginative stage design and an imposing musical score, this is heart-stopping theatre at its best.
At the National Theatre: Lyttleton, SE1, 26 September to 21 October

RTÉ's The Book Show has announced a competition inviting listeners to write a letter to a character from a novel:

The Book Show asked the writer Kit de Waal (My Name Is Leon) to think of a character she’d like to write to and she immediately thought of Bertha Mason - the first Mrs Rochester from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. Dragged over from Jamaica to a cold, lonely house in England by her unloving husband Edward Rochester, she became maligned as the madwoman in the attic. Kit de Waal has one piece of advice - Get Out Of Thee!

Some years ago, Kit de Waal, obsessed with the story of Brontë’s misunderstood character, impersonated her in a letter to her husband Edward Rochester and she shared this piece of flash fiction with The Book Show.

Oliver Kamm, in The Times, always the Brontëite:

I have a six-mile round trip to and from the office. I walk it while listening to Victorian novels on my smartphone. It’s the right sort of literature for London traffic: the narrative pace of, say, George Eliot means that if a passing juggernaut momentarily drowns out the sound, I’m unlikely to have missed a crucial plot twist. In the case of one novel I particularly admire, though — Charlotte Brontë’s Villette — I had to listen again to a chapter for a different reason. The plot hinges on an outlandish coincidence and I couldn’t quite credit that the author had resorted to so implausible a contrivance. She could have done with a ruthless editor insisting she rewrite it.

Also in The Times, a review of Susan Hill's Jacob's Room is Full of Books:

Jacob’s Room is Full of Books is a diary of stray thoughts about life and literature. In her reading, Hill is high-brow, low-brow, middle-brow and raised eyebrow. She gives equal shelf room to Vladimir Nabokov’s Lectures on Literature and the Ladybird book The Enormous Turnip. She has not read Jane Eyre, doesn’t think much of Jane Austen, and still gets The Beano Annual for Christmas every year. (Laura Freeman)

Press Connect lists some good soundtracks for working or studying:

Jane Eyre (2011). Dario Marianelli
If you like scenes with little or no talking, and shots of main characters walking through foggy fields, this is a movie for you. Jane, played by Mia Wasikowska, has a horrific upbringing, including time spent at a school for orphaned girls, where abuse is rampant. She becomes a governess, and the rest unfolds. A lot of the communication in this movie comes from glances, facial expressions and body movement. If you prefer banter, check out No. 3 and No. 4. Suggested tracks: Wandering Jane, A Game of Badminton, In Jest or Earnest. (Hannah Schwarz)

Broadway World reports the US premiere of the Monica Salvi cabaret Mad Women in My Attic!:

The haunting, comedic cabaret show, Mad Women in my Attic! comes to the United Solo Festival on Saturday, October 7th at 4:00 pm. The production played to critical acclaim at the Brighton Fringe and Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2015. (...)
A semi-autobiographical cabaret set in a lunatic asylum. From Sweeney Todd, to Jane Eyre the musical, from Sunset Boulevard to Kiss of the Spiderwoman, Mad Women in my Attic! is a fantastic romp through showtunes, folk and cabaret songs, celebrating the mentally unstable women that populate music and theatre.

The Times reviews the concert by the Nash Ensemble at Wigmore Hall which included

[John] Casken’s Misted Land, the other premiere, took up 15 minutes and didn’t waste any of them. Richard Hosford’s clarinet and the Nash strings darted delectably around a constantly shifting, mysterious landscape, probably not far from Wuthering Heights. (Geoff Brown)

A local production of The Mystery of Irma Vep in the Snoqualmie Valley Record:

This play borrows from a smorgasbord of works such as Wuthering Heights, the Hitchcock film, Rebecca, Shakespeare, Victorian penny dreadfuls and the entire selection of American vampire, mummy and werewolf movies. For good reason, Irma Vep has the distinction of being Ludlam’s most popular work, inspiring hundreds of productions around the world.

Advisor Professional (in Italian) quotes Anne Brontë:

E se “come diceva un vecchio saggio che il vento non si ferma con le mani” la rivoluzione non si potrà subire, ma soltanto trasformare in una preziosa opportunità. Purtroppo non per tutti. Partendo dalla citazione della scrittrice e poetessa britannica Anne Brontë “Chi non osa afferrare le spine, non dovrebbe mai desiderare la rosa”, i consulenti finanziari non potranno aver paura di giocare la partita, non dovranno temere la concorrenza: anche fosse agguerrita e scorretta, anche non avesse consolidata esperienza, un adeguato approccio e quel metodo affinato nel tempo e perfezionato attraverso la tecnologia. Insomma nessuna scusa, nessun blocco alla concorrenza. (Massimo Donato) (Translation) 

Newsmonkey (in Dutch) reviews the TV series Anne with an E:

Anne is een intelligent meisje, dat is al snel duidelijk. Ze tatert en tatert en tatert, heeft een levendige verbeelding en ze houdt van lezen en van grootse liefdesverhalen. Ze kan uit het hoofd citeren uit Jane Eyre en ze heeft een uitgebreide woordenkennis die zo ver gaat dat ze kan praten zodat geen van haar klasgenootjes begrijpen waar ze het over heeft. (Geert Verheyen) (Translation)

El Digital de Castilla-La Mancha (in Spanish) traces a profile of the author Elena Fuentes Moreno:

Su fascinación por personajes con personalidades fuertes como Heathcliff o Catherine Earshaw, protagonistas de 'Cumbres Borrascosas', o los que pueblan el universo literario de Patricia Highsmith, le llevó a interesarse por el estudio de la psique humana. (Translation)

Culturamas (in Spanish) reviews La Composición de la sal by Magela Baudoin:

Mención aparte merece Borrasca, donde Cumbres borrascosas se convierte en una metáfora emocional sobre la que hablan la abuela y la nieta en un día de playa con mucho sol. Aunque podríamos haber elegido cualquier otro, pues ese océano en el que flota el iceberg es lo cotidiano, algo de lo que no se aparta Baudoin, algo que convierte en un estilo literario. (Ricardo Martínez Llorca) (Translation)

Cineuropa (in Italian) talks about the latest film by the Taviani Brothers, just premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, Una questione privata:

Ambientato nelle Langhe fuori Torino durante la guerra civile in Italia, la storia segue un partigiano di vent’anni noto con il nome di battaglia di Milton (Luca Marinelli), come il poeta inglese del XVII secolo. Grazie al suo migliore amico Giorgio (Lorenzo Richelmy), verrà presentato a Fulvia (Valentina Bellè), una ragazza spiritosamente provocante che ama ascoltare Over the Rainbow di Judy Garland e leggere Cime tempestose di Emily Brontë. Milton si innamora immediatamente di lei e sembra che l’affetto sia reciproco. (Vassilis Economou) (Translation)

El Blog Perdido de Laura (in Spanish) reviews The Life of Charlotte Brontë by Elizabeth Gaskell. Jane Eyre's Library (also in Spanish) briefly posts about The Brontë Yearbook by Juliet Barker.

Read More

Wuthering Heights in Pozuelo

Another chance to see an amateur performance of a Spanish adaptation of Wuthering Heights:

XVIII Certamen de Teatro Aficionado "José María Rodero"
Badulake Teatro presents
Cumbres borrascosas
September 23, 2017, 7.00PM
MIRA Teatro, Pozuelo de Alarcón, Spain

La obra trata de la poderosa y hosca figura de Heathcliff, una historia apasionada y tempestuosa cuya sensibilidad se adelantó a su tiempo. Los brumosos y sombríos páramos de Yorkshire son el singular escenario donde se desarrolla con fuerza arrebatadora esta historia de venganza y odio, de pasiones desatadas y amores desesperados que van más allá de la muerte y que hacen de ella una de las obras más singulares y atractivas de todos los tiempos.
Con el trasfondo de la historia familiar de los Earnshaw y los Linton, narran la vida de dos generaciones que se cruzan en el amor infortunado del protagonista por su compañera de infancia. Entre exaltaciones poéticas y historia de amor trágico que crece hasta conseguir momentos de gran lirismo en los que se mezclan la pasión con la muerte y el arrepentimiento con la venganza.

Read More

Heathcliff in a Ferrari

Seacoast Online reviews Seacoast Repertory Theater's Jane Eyre the Musical.

This is arguably Director Danielle Howard’s best work. Every scene is beautifully staged; whether action or tableau, each is a vision. The movement is sharp, filled with a sense of period and place, and done with a thoughtful pace and occasional pause and use of the broader theater space.
Howard’s casting is impeccable. Characters personas are well colored, with attention to the era’s physicality. It’s an outstanding job.
The performers are collectively an embarrassment of riches.
Tess Jonas as the adult Jane Eyre gives a flawless performance. She really is Jane; bright, and reserved, distant yet warm, and naturally compelling on stage. Whatever Jane’s undercurrent Jonas conveys it with a quiet emotional resonance. It’s an eloquent performance throughout.
Joel Crowley personifies Edward Fairfax Rochester, his most simple move, carriage, and voice goes to character; his facial expressions never wanting. It’s a perceptive, authentic performance.
And so it goes with each and ever character, from principle to ensemble. Ayla Walsh as the young Jane is heart-warming and heart-rending, as is Kylee Brown as her orphanage friend Helen. Their exchanges are amongst the show’s more poignant moments.
Linette Miles’ Mrs. Fairfax carries a heavy load, a bit of levity in this gothic world. Miles makes it appear an easy task. Her performance perfect, her voice spot on.
Alyssa Weathersby, as Blanche, makes it easy for you to hiss at the character, every bit the mean girl, with a strong soprano voice.
It continues to a person: Concetta Russo proves disturbing as Mrs. Reed, ditto Dan Slavin as Mr. Brocklehurst. Both Kelsey Andrae as Miss Scatcherd (and others), and Sam St. Jean as Robert (so subtly funny), deliver well-nuanced performances. All bring a clear, strong voice to bare, each worthy of note.
The young Delaney Roache as Adele is charming.
And so it goes, not a single cast member missing a beat either performance or vocally: Ben Breault, Rachel Noland, Dan Prior, Gabrielle Traub and Jacob Zentis. Ditto the lovely school girls, who are completely convincing.
The additional arts are equally blessed.
The choreography by C. Robin Marcotte is immaculate, interesting and engaging.
Each of the production’s visual director help bring to life a moody, rich canvas for the actors to perform on.
Designer Szu-Feng Chen’s set is an artful delight. It serves perfectly, but more important from the audience’s point of view, it’s striking; a pleasure to view. Designer Kelly Gibson’s lighting is equally deft, and interestingly dramatic -- evocative and mysterious.
The costumes by James Weeden are sensational. They speak fully to the period, (with a bit of appropriate playfulness in the large flowered patterned ball gowns). Weeden shows a wonderful eye for detail and understanding of the play’s disposition, and strongly help define character.
Musical Director John Berst has brought incredible personality into the vocals. The four-piece orchestra, under Berst, create a full, gratifying accompaniment.
“Jane Eyre” is not a bouncy musical, neither in its demeanor or songs. What it is is a beautiful telling of a classic with an artist in every role on and off stage; a wonderful work of art not be missed. (Jeanné McCartin)

The Chester Chronicle announces The Chester Antiques Show at Chester Racecourse from October 12-15.

Fans of the classic and contemporary fiction will enjoy the collection of Art of the Imagination who specialise in original oils and watercolour drawings commissioned to illustrate famous stories new and old.
Scenes from Wind in the Willows, Wuthering Heights and even Rupert Bear compete to capture attention. (Leah Jones)

Fort Worth Weekly reviews the film Lady Macbeth.

One reason behind the Samuel L. Jackson-caused scrape this past spring over black British actors portraying African-Americans in American movies is that there’s not enough work for them in their own country. After all, where will you put black actors in a Jane Austen adaptation? Some recent British films — not enough, but notably Amma Asante’s Belle and Andrea Arnold’s interracial adaptation of Wuthering Heights — have sought to redress this by casting these actors in period dramas, to show that black people have been part of British history for centuries. The latest and best is Lady Macbeth, a concentrated 19th-century drama that will freeze your blood, should you see it at the Modern this weekend. (Kristian Lin)

As does Hindustan Times:

So there was a certain renewed vigour that Lady Macbeth – a film that until a few days ago existed only in the farthest fringes of my radar – left me with. It’s a pulp thriller playing dress-up; a lean, mean tale of repressed rage that has the look and feel of a Charlotte Bronte novel, but possesses a soul as dark as something Nicolas Winding Refn might create with Quentin Tarantino and Park Chan-wook watching from the wings. (Rohan Naahar)

Motorsport Week has one of those contrived Wuthering Heights references.

The look of horror on team principal Maurizio Arrivabene’s face was such that one imagined this Heathcliff-like figure had seen the ghost of Cathy Earnshaw wandering through the Ferrari garage… but these were not Wuthering Heights, but rather heights of blundering by the Ferrari drivers. (Joe Saward)

Penguin Random House's The Read Down lists Wuthering Heights among other '40 Books to Read Before You’re 40'.

Read More

7th Brontë Festival of Women's Writing

A festival showcasing and celebrating women's writing at the Brontë Parsonage Museum:

7th Brontë Festival of Women's WritingSeptember 22- September 24

Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë were pioneering women writers and continue to inspire contemporary literature in limitless ways. The Museum is delighted to be hosting its seventh festival dedicated to showcasing and celebrating women's writing.

Friday 22 September from 7pm
Cobbles and Clay
Getting Yourself Out There! Self-Publishing and Self-Promotion 

with academic Laurie Garrison, and novelists Sarah Dunnakey, Jane Davis and Helen Taylor. The festival kicks off with this evening focuses on the growth of alternative publishing methods, and our  panel will share their experiences of self-promotion and the dos and don'ts when developing your audience.

Saturday 23 September from 2pm
Brontë Parsonage Museum
Stepping Into the Sisters's Shoes: Writing Workshop with Liz Flanagan

Are you a teenage girl who likes to write? Join YA author Liz Flanagan for a writing workshop here at the Brontë Parsonage Museum. In this workshop devised especially for girls aged 12-16, Liz will lead a series of writing exercises, designed to be fun and accessible. Attendees will also be invited to take a walk through the Museum and draw inspiration from the collections to create a new piece of writing.


Saturday 23 September, 2:30pm
Venue: West Lane Baptist Cente, Haworth
Adapting the Brontés with Rachel Joyce and Deborah McAndrew

The novels of the Brontës are among the most commonly adapted in literature. Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall have been brought to life as plays, ballets, films, operas and radio dramas. Join novelist Rachel Joyce and playwright Deborah McAndrew as they discuss the challenges inherent in adapting some of the world’s best loved fictional texts to suit a new medium.

Saturday 23 September, 7:30pm
West Lane Baptist Centre, Haworth
Sarah Perry: Meet the Author of The Essex Serpent

Novelist Sarah Perry talks about her bestselling novel The Essex Serpent. Set in 1893 and firmly rooted in the author’s home county of Essex, The Essex Serpent follows Cora, a keen amateur naturalist convinced that what the local people think is a magical beast may be a previously undiscovered species, and William Ransome, a local vicar who sees the rumours as a distraction to the true faith.

Sunday 24 September, 10:30am
Ponden Hall, Stanbury
Writing for Stage: A Workshop wth Deborah McAndrew

Join playwright Deborah McAndrew for a workshop on writing for the stage, which will combine her extensive advice and experience with more practical exercises, and  a focus on the particular challenges of adapting classic novels.

Sunday 24 September, 02:00pm
Ponden Hall, Stanbury
Writing for Radio: A Workshop with Rachel Joyce

Rachel Joyce, award-winning novelist and author of BBC Radio 4’s Jane Eyre, Agnes Grey and Shirley, hosts a workshop on writing for radio covering the essentials of the medium – ‘telling’ instead of ‘seeing’ and some of the dos and don’ts of audio drama. Rachel has also written over twenty original afternoon plays and adaptations of the classics for BBC Radio 4, including all the Brontë novels.

Read More

Different Gytrash

Exploring words in Jane Eyre on the Oxford University Press blog looking into the Gytrash/guytrash.

One of them is guytrash “goblin; specter.” The word occurs in Jane Eyre. The idea that trash here is a variant of thurse is Scott’s, and it looks convincing. In Chapter 12 of Charlotte Brontë’s novel, the goblin is described so: “…a great dog, whose black and white color made him a distinct object against the trees. It was exactly one mask of Bessie’s Gytrash (sic)—a lion-like creature with long hair and a huge head; it passed me however, quietly enough, not staying to look up, with strange pretercanine eyes, in the face, as I half expected it would. The horse followed—a tall steed and on its back a rider….” After all, the figure turned out not to be G(u)ytrash, and the most frightening part of the description is the word pretercanine, most likely Brontë’s coinage on the analogy of preternatural (so “beyond what one could expect from a dog’s eyes”). (Anatoly Liberman)

On Female First, dress historian and author Lucy Adlington picks her 'Top 10 Novels For Fashion Lovers'.

Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë (1847)
Jane Eyre is one of those classic novels which gives something new each time you read it.  There are plentiful references to clothes throughout the book, all giving insight into characters and emotions.  While early Victorian fashions seem demure and restraining they, like Jane’s calm exterior, can hide passionate souls.  From Jane’s drab school uniform, to the ravaged lace of her wedding veil, clothes show mood… and madness.  I particularly like Jane’s adoption of black and grey for daily wear. Seemingly sensible, it actually becomes a colour of possibility and quality, in contrast to the peacock colours of more gaudy characters. Add a brooding Mr Rochester and you’ve all the elements for intelligent escapism.

Gears of Biz recommends '10 Books Like ‘Good Omens’ To Read While You Wait The Upcoming Miniseries', including Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair.

What Good Omens does for the Bible, Jasper Fforde does for all of English literature. The Eyre Affair is set in a slightly different universe from our own, where people watch Richard III like it’s The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Thursday Next is employed as a literary detective. Everything changes for Thursday, though, when she discovers her ability to actually jump into books, and soon she’s on the case tracking down the kidnapper of Jane Eyre. (Bill Cooke)

A columnist from Deseret News discusses motherhood and creativity.

Before having kids, I worried about the tug between my creative endeavors and being a mother. After all, my favorite female writers, the Jane Austens and Willa Cathers and Brontë sisters of the world, led famously childless lives. While things have certainly advanced since the Victorian era, there is a still the tug between creativity and mothering. Even as a teenager, I had the habit of flipping to the author’s bio of each book I read, just to see how many children she had. (Tiffany Gee Lewis)

The Gainesville Sun features the Gainesville Orchestra's opening show for the 2017 season, "From the Mediterranean Sea to the German Alps".

[...] other pieces will include Francis Poulenc’s Trio for oboe, bassoon and piano [...]
Poulenc’s trio brings the audience to the German Alps, Haile said. It’s a “very passionate, very sweeping” piece that resembles romantic dramas like “Wuthering Heights” and “Jane Eyre.” (Paige Fry)

From First Page to Last has a Q&A with writer Claire Evans:

6. If you could only read one book for the rest of your life which book would it be?Wuthering Heights. Without a doubt. It’s probably the book I have read the most – maybe 10 times at various stages of my life. I think there is something elusive about it, something unknowable. Every time I read it I promise myself I will really concentrate, find what I’m missing, but then I get swept along and have to accept there are no more clues to be had. Emily Brontë is top of the list of women I would like to talk to in the afterlife – if there was one. I think if I could understand her, I would finally understand this book. But then maybe I’d find it less compelling. I don’t know. I think it’s a masterpiece by the way – THE masterpiece of novel writing. Just writing this makes me want to read it again.

Writergurlny features Isabella Linton. Paperblog reviews Ángeles Caso's Todo ese fuego in Spanish. And more on Branwell Brontë and Wordsworth’s Lake District on the Brussels Brontë Blog.

Read More

Jane, Unlimited

A new retelling of Jane Eyre has just been published:

Jane, Unlimitedby Kristin Cashore
Penguin
September 29, 2017

The highly anticipated standalone from the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of the Graceling Realm series—a kaleidoscopic novel about grief, adventure, storytelling, and finding yourself in a world of seemingly infinite choices.
Jane has lived an ordinary life, raised by her aunt Magnolia—an adjunct professor and deep sea photographer. Jane counted on Magnolia to make the world feel expansive and to turn life into an adventure. But Aunt Magnolia was lost a few months ago in Antarctica on one of her expeditions.
Now, with no direction, a year out of high school, and obsessed with making umbrellas that look like her own dreams (but mostly just mourning her aunt), she is easily swept away by Kiran Thrash—a glamorous, capricious acquaintance who shows up and asks Jane to accompany her to a gala at her family’s island mansion called Tu Reviens.
Jane remembers her aunt telling her: “If anyone ever invites to you to Tu Reviens, promise me that you’ll go.” With nothing but a trunkful of umbrella parts to her name, Jane ventures out to the Thrash estate. Then her story takes a turn, or rather, five turns. What Jane doesn’t know is that Tu Reviens will offer her choices that can ultimately determine the course of her untethered life. But at Tu Reviens, every choice comes with a reward, or a price.
Read Jane, Unlimited and remember why The New York Times has raved, “Some authors can tell a good story; some can write well. Cashore is one of the rare novelists who do both.”

Read More

Legacies and Afterlives

The Chester Chronicle features the new book Charlotte Brontë, Legacies and Afterlives by Amber K. Regis and Deborah Wynne.

The front cover is also a University of Chester production, having been designed by Dr Simon Grennan, research fellow in the department of art and design.
This volume of essays has been compiled as a response to Charlotte Brontë’s bicentenary and offers a timely reflection on the persistent fascination of Brontë’s life and work.
The essays cover the period from her first publication in 1847 to the 21st century and explain why her work has endured in so many different forms and contexts.
Charlotte Brontë, Legacies and Afterlives analyses the intriguing afterlives of characters such as Jane Eyre and Rochester in neo-Victorian fiction, cinema, television, radio, the stage and, more recently, on the web.
From obituaries to vlogs, from stage to screen, from novels to erotic makeovers, it takes a fresh look at 150 years of engagement with one of the best-loved novelists of the Victorian period.
A further University of Chester connection is that one of the chapters has been written by Dr Louisa Yates, director of research and collections at Gladstone’s Library, Hawarden and a visiting lecturer in English at the University of Chester.
Professor Wynne said: “The impulse motivating the current volume of essays stems from the question of why Charlotte Brontë’s work continues to be so widely read. We are also asking why her characters have endured in so many different forms and cultural contexts.
“Visitors come from all around the world to visit the Brontë Parsonage Museum and it is clear that Charlotte Brontë is a cultural phenomenon which continues to evolve, as do her literary legacies.
“The book’s contributors come from many universities and we bring the story of Charlotte’s afterlife and legacy up to 2017. (Leah Jones)

Geek.com reviews Aline Brosh McKenna's Jane.

Aline Brosh McKenna doesn’t just recreate the story of Jane Eyre but instantly makes it her own. She sets Jane’s goals threading her wants, feelings, desires, ups, and downs throughout the story. McKenna’s approach to the novel fascinated and inspired me. In particular, the way we see life through the very private and secret life of Jane herself. Jane is a woman that is coming into her own and profound within her thoughts. She observes, which McKenna makes a huge part of the story for a fantastic reason. It connects to her art and her way of dealing with others.
Another captivating part of Jane is following our leading lady through her journey of becoming her woman. We witness her finally not being alone and what that comes with. She forms her own chosen family and makes moral decisions as she figures out whats right and wrong, good and evil and so on. The original novel deals with this theme as well, but McKenna takes it a little deeper. She brings it into the new age, especially as she tries to figure out her aspirations and dreams through her art and job.
Ramón K. Pérez is an absolute craftsman of an artist. I can honestly say, without a shadow of a doubt, that I was blown away by Pérez pages for this graphic novel. Jane is a remarkable work of art that reads personal and feels personal through the art. He takes Jane’s perspective and observations, bringing you fully into her point of view. He brings that feeling and frame of mind not only within in the art but the colors Irma Kniivila provides with his assistance. They lace the graphic novel with a combination of arresting moody, but rich, warm colors. It creates a perfect balance for the story as a whole. It even amps up the romance brewing between Jane and Mr. Rochester so well. [...]
Jane is a lovely and out of this world inspired adaptation of the original novel. It’s natural, sensible and above all else, true to itself. (Insha Fitzpatrick)

And another Jane Eyre retelling on Vox: YA novel Jane, Unlimited by Kristin Cashore.

If you’re a fan of gothic great house books, you know there are only a few directions for Jane, Unlimited to go in. There’s the Jane Eyre direction, where the heroine wins the love of the saturnine master of the house, only to be briefly foiled by his still-living ex-wife. There’s the Rebecca direction, where the heroine wins the love of the saturnine master of the house, only to be briefly foiled by his dead ex-wife. Or, if you really want to stretch, there’s the Northanger Abbey direction, where the whole story turns out to be the product of the heroine’s over-active imagination.
But Jane, Unlimited romps joyously over all of these expectations. Why pick one road, it demands, when you could pick all of them? Having spent its first 84 pages providing Jane with a plethora of potential mysteries to investigate, the narrative pivots on a single moment of decision and then spins out from there into several parallel timelines, unraveling what might ensue from every choice she makes.
One decision leads Jane into a spy thriller. Another takes her into a gothic horror story. Another into a space opera. There are more. (Constance Grady)

And Publishers' Weekly has a Q&A with the author:

This novel also contains a lot of allusions to many classic novels, most notably Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. Well, if the main character was going to have all these different kinds of adventures, I realized the setting was going to be really important because it would be the backdrop against which all these adventures would be set—almost like how the setting of a video game lays a foundation for what the game will be like. So once I decided that Jane was an orphan and that most of the story would take place inside a house, it had to be a strange, isolated house where a lot of odd things could be going on. And once I settled on that I couldn’t help but think of Rebecca. And then how could I have a house of mystery without some Jane Eyre references? And then something else prompted me to include Winnie-the-Pooh, and Dr. Who, and Vermeer. What was I thinking? It sounds ridiculous. (Sue Corbett)

Hull Daily Mail reviews Sally Cookson's Jane Eyre.

The actor playing Jane is incredibly versatile, as are the rest of the cast, but she effortlessly eased from playing a ten-year-old orphan into a well-versed governess with her own independence. [...]
With a live band on stage and haunting operatic vocals from a surprise character, it was the music that really added to the drama of the story.
With Mad About The Boy and Crazy slowed down and performed at pivotal parts, the modern additions fit well with the 170-year-old tale.
With the first screech of a baby, I was unsure whether the play would be too thespian for my taste. However, within a couple of scenes I was drawn in and the three hours seemed to zoom by.
The standing ovation at the end is testament to what a wonderful play this is, but with swapped gender roles and the odd swear word, do not expect a typical retelling of this classic story. (Hannah Robinson)

The Huddersfield Daily Examiner has author Alan Titterington speak about Branwell Brontë.

Branwell Brontë has unfairly gone down in history as a drunken drug-taker says an author who has researched his life.
This year marks 200 since Branwell’s birth in 1817 and Calderdale writer Alan Titterington says Branwell was a highly talented man who brought out the creativity in his famous sisters.
He said: “Usually in the shadow of his more famous literary sisters Charlotte, Emily and Anne, Branwell is increasingly recognised as a major driving influence of their creativity from childhood.
“Remembered more for a dissolute life of alcohol and opium abuse, he was nevertheless the first to be published (poetry in the Halifax Guardian) and his achievements were less than his sisters not just because he lacked their application but because of the sheer diversity of his talents. It was also Branwell that encouraged his sisters to write novels rather than the less profitable poetry.”
Alan says Branwell was poet, portrait painter, church organist, Greek classicist and in possession of an unusual skill to write in both Greek and Latin simultaneously using both hands for which he won bets in pubs around Halifax, including the since-demolished Talbot public house in the adjacent Woolshops, frequented by Piece Hall traders and visitors alike on market days.
Branwell recorded a friendship with businessman John Titterington in his Luddenden diaries, painted portraits of him and his wife Mary and visited his friend on market days at the Halifax Piece Hall where John and his father Eli and his brothers traded from room 63 in the Rustick gallery.
Thomas Titterington, John’s grandfather, an original tenant at the Piece Hall, opened his room for business at 43 Rustick on the very first day of trading at the market on January 1, 1779. Blondin’s Ice Cream Parlour now occupies this space.
In honour of both Branwell’s birthday celebrations and specifically in memory of the original Piece Hall tenant Thomas Titterington, his great-great-great-great-great-great granddaughters Niamh, Erin and Ruby Titterington have been invited to open trading on October 7 by ringing the Piece Hall bell at 10am.
The girls’ grandfather Alan has re-imagined events from 1848 in his novel St John in the Wilderness which includes capturing the essential flavour of the times on trading days at the Piece Hall as well as Branwell and the Brontë family. The eponymous John of the title, disinherited by his own father, goes on to be incarcerated in the debtors’ prison at the notorious York Castle from where he relates the story of his eventful life.
Number 63 Rustick is today trading as Spogs and Spices. (Andrew Hirst)

More on the Brontë Society taking over the Haworth Visitor Information Centre in Keighley News.

Councillor Gary Swallow, chairman of Haworth, Cross Roads and Stanbury Parish Council, said: "The end of the information centre, as proposed by Bradford Council, would have been a great loss to the tourist industry in Haworth.
"And it would have jeopardised our viability as a tourist centre.
"So I'm delighted that this is going to be run by the Brontë Society. We wish them well and if they need any assistance or advice in future as a parish council we'd be more than willing to work with them."
Worth Valley ward councillor Rebecca Poulsen said: "While it's a shame that it's got to this stage, I think it can and will work and I'll support the society to make it a success.
"Losing the VIC completely would have been absolutely abysmal for this area, so I think this is the best outcome we could have hoped for." (Miran Rahman)

Still locally, Yorkshire Evening Post features Nancy Barrett, who aims to make 'the arts more accessible to those on low incomes'.

“Creative Scene was an ideal project for me. We are based in Dewsbury and it’s a town that I genuinely find fascinating. [...]
“This is a historic and really diverse part of Yorkshire. I associate it very much as the traditional ‘West Riding’; it’s full of history like the Luddite Riots, shoddy and mungo production, endless Brontë-connections and some really beautiful landscapes too, not to mention fine historic house and walled gardens and handsome town centres." (Alison Bellamy)

Read More

The Secret History of Jane Eyre in Arlington

An alert in Arlington, VA for today, September 20:

"The Secret History of Jane Eyre" by John Pfordresher
How Charlotte Brontë Wrote Her Masterpiece
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
7:00pm - 8:30pm
Auditorium
Central Library, Arlington, VA

Why did Charlotte Brontë go to such great lengths on the publication of her acclaimed, best-selling novel to conceal its authorship from her family, close friends, and the press?
Georgetown University Professor of English John C. Pfordresher, author of "The Secret History of Jane Eyre," explores these questions through an investigation into the relationship between the novel's heroine and its author, a link Brontë denied but which in complex ways emerges in virtually every aspect of the book.
Books will be available for sale and signing after the event.

Read More

A bar in which to read Wuthering Heights

Broadway World has a video interview with Nadia Clifford, who currently plays Jane Eyre in Sally Cookson's adaptation.

The Washington Times reviews the novel The Little French Bistro by Nina George.

Novels about women leaving a dismal marriage are legion. One of the first in English was Anne Brontë’s “Tenant of Wildfell Hall,” whose heroine Helen takes her young son and runs away from her alcoholic husband. This was published in 1848 when divorce was not possible, and legally the child and any property the wife might have owned belonged to the father.
Helen therefore must live a secret life to protect her boy and herself. Brontë was taking aims at the cruel failures of the law to protect women and their children. Nowadays, novelists who take up the theme of the wife who abandons her marriage have no need to argue in favor of divorce. Instead they interrogate a relationship, asking implicitly or explicitly what shortcomings justify the wife’s departure. (Claire Hopley)

USA Today's Happy Ever After interviews writer Mimi Matthews.

Joyce: What inspires your book ideas? Mimi: Anything and everything. However, the biggest source of inspiration for me comes from my research. It’s while researching for my non-fiction history projects that I discover interesting tidbits about things that happened in the Victorian era, many of which find their way into my stories. I also draw inspiration from 19th-century novels by authors like Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and the Brontë sisters. For The Lost Letter in particular, classic Victorian literature definitely played a role in shaping the flow and style of the story. (Joyce Lamb)

Los Angeles Magazine recommends 'Seven Bars in L.A. That Are Perfect for Reading Books' such as

7. The Wellesbourne
10929 West Pico Boulevard, Los Angeles
We couldn’t make this list without including the only West L.A. bar we know of that can literally boast its own library. Dark wood, shelves lined with vintage tomes, and that’s just one of the snug rooms you’ll find at this decidedly Old World-inspired drinking den. Fireplaces, chesterfield sofas, velvet drapes—if you’re not reading something Victorian up in here, you’re probably doing it wrong.
What to Read Here: Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (Brittany Martin)

While The New York Times recommends the show Literati: A Comedy Show About the Greatest American Novels Never Written at Union Hall.

This regular live show and podcast welcomes new comedians each month to read a selection of literature, real or imagined, in character and in costume. On Thursday at 9:30 p.m.,the guest headliners are Jacqueline Novak, left, who doles out Jane Austen-like wit with the self-assurance of Jane Eyre, and Jaboukie Young-White, whose Twitter feed could be compiled into a best-selling book of aphorisms. (Kasia Pilat)

Uncut reviews the film God's Own Country.

This debut feature from Yorkshire-born actor and first-time director Francis Lee shows the British countryside as a lonely and unforgiving place; his camera unflinching as it captures the graphic realities of livestock farming. It would be easy to see God’s Own Country as an uneasy mix of Brokeback Mountain and All Creatures Great And Small – it isn’t. Instead it feels closer in spirit to Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights – which similarly took place in an eerie, untamed wilderness – or Pawel Pawlikowski’s splendid Yorkshire-set same-sex romance My Summer Of Love. (Michael Bonner)

The Times has an obituary for Jeremy Dale Roberts who trained

singers for a recording of Bernard Herrmann’s opera Wuthering Heights at Barking town hall.

Another obituary can be read in Ojo (Perú), the actress Saby Kamalich who played Cathy in a Peruvian TV adaptation of Emily Brontë's novel in 1963.

Read More

Jane by McKenna & Pérez

Boom! Studios publishes today a contemporary comic adaptation of  Jane Eyre:

Jane
by Aline McKenna (Author), Ramón K. Pérez (Illustrator)
Archaia - Boom! Studios
ISBN-13: 978-1608869817

A reimagining of Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel Jane Eyre set in present day, written by acclaimed screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna and Eisner Award-winning illustrator Ramón K. Pérez.
Growing up in a broken home in a small fishing town, Jane dreamed of escaping to art school and following the allure of New York City. When that dream becomes a reality however, it’s not long before she feels out of place by the size of the city and the talent of her peers. She soon discovers her place as she begins to nanny a young girl named Adele, but that is upended when she falls for the girl’s father, Rochester, a sardonic man of power, wealth, and unexpected charm. Jane learns that in the world of New York’s elite, secrets are the greatest extravagance and she’ll have to decide if she should trust the man she loves or do what ever it takes to protect Adele from the consequences of his deception.
Award-winning screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna (The Devil Wears Prada, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) makes her graphic novel debut with Eisner Award-winning illustrator Ramón K. Pérez (Jim Henson’s Tale of Sand) in this powerful reimaging of Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel Jane Eyre in present day Manhattan, where luxury masks dark secrets.

Read More

Branwell in a coffee shop

The Independent features Branwell in the year of his bicentenary with the headline 'Branwell Brontë: The mad, bad and dangerous brother of Charlotte, Emily and Anne' and yet the article, with comments by Simon Armitage, is not as sensational as the headline would imply.

The sisters, of course, are known the world over for their collective body of work including Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Very little is widely known about Branwell, other than he had ambitions to be a successful artist which were never realised, and died aged 31 after spiralling into addiction to alcohol, laudanum and opium. There are even conspiracy theories which abound which claim Branwell actually wrote his sisters’ books for them.
But while it’s tempting to view Branwell as a Byronesque, proto-Beat Poet figure who suffered for his art through drink and drugs, the reality is he led a rather tragic life littered with failures, fraught ambitions, and unfulfilled dreams. [...]
But this is Branwell’s year, and curating a series of events and exhibitions at the Parsonage is the poet, playwright and novelist Simon Armitage. On 7 October, at the museum, Armitage will be in conversation about Branwell’s life with the actor Adam Nagaitis, who portrayed the Brontë brother in last year’s Sally Wainwright BBC drama about the family, To Walk Invisible.
“To a certain extent, I’ve always been aware of Branwell,” says Armitage, who was born in Huddersfield and now lives in Holmfirth. “But I suppose he was always a background figure in the Brontë story. He did literally paint himself out of his own portrait of the family.”
The Parsonage asked Armitage, who says growing up in West Yorkshire meant the Brontë story was “always part of the landscape for me”, to curate this year’s Branwell events. “It’s not really a celebration,” he says carefully. “I think that’s the wrong word when talking about Branwell. But it is a marking of the 200th anniversary of his birth. I think what I’m hoping is that this year will raise Branwell’s profile a bit. I suppose it’s something of a re-branding exercise.”
Largely educated at the Parsonage by Elizabeth and visiting tutors, Branwell was a precocious child with a not inconsiderable intellect. He was red haired and quick-witted, and had a fiery disposition. He had ambitions to both be an artist and a writer, and his gregarious personality and creative impulses had an effect on his sisters, of that Armitage is in no doubt.
“I think he must have been a huge influence on his sisters in their creative writing and creative thinking. He was exciting and interesting, and we can only speculate about the extent to which his escapades fuelled their creativity,” he says.
Others have speculated more closely about Branwell’s involvement in the sisters’ work; indeed there has long been a “Branwellian” movement, since the 1920s at least, which firmly believes he actually wrote Wuthering Heights, if not more of the Brontë books.
It’s a theory that’s roundly dismissed as nonsense these days, and which was satirised in Stella Gibbons’ 1932 novel Cold Comfort Farm, in which the character Mr Mybug is writing a book devoted to the conspiracy theory. Mr Mybug opines, “You see, it’s obvious that it’s his book and not Emily’s. No woman could have written that. It’s male stuff…”
The main argument (apart from, of course, that the whole idea is the sort of sexist claptrap roundly taken down in Joanna Russ’s 1983 book, How To Suppress Women’s Writing) against the whole idea is that while Branwell had very lofty ideas and was certainly not backwards at putting himself forwards, he probably didn’t have the talent and drive to do it.
Branwell had announced early on that he was going to be a poet and a painter. According to Armitage, he couldn’t have set the bar any higher. “He chose poetry and oil painting which were probably the most difficult disciplines to progress in at that time,” he says. [...]
“Really, his talents didn’t take him much beyond his teenage years,” says Armitage. “The lack of progress with his painting must have really frustrated him. His talent had dried up at the point when for most people they were beginning to enjoy artistic accomplishment.
“There’s certainly a picaresque element to his life, which some people seem to find quite exciting. But it’s more poignant and sad, really. If Branwell was being judged by today’s standards then we would certainly say he suffered from mental health problems and addiction issues.”
As part of this year’s Branwell commemorations at the Parsonage, they have recreated his studio, and while it is comprised of non-original items (unlike the other rooms in the museum which feature the exact clothing, furniture and decorations that the Brontës wore and used) it has been painstakingly researched and sourced and is everything you would want the den of the wayward Brontë brother to be. Unmade bed, filthy sheets, books scattered across the floor. [...]
“He was usually the author of his own downfall,” says Armitage. “His jobs always ended in disaster. I’m sure his heart wasn’t in any of them, they were never what he aspired to, but he could never make a success of what he wanted to be. He never produced anything of a high enough quality. He felt a failure.”
What might have made things worse for Branwell was that, as Armitage puts it, “as he was nosediving, his sisters’ stars were rising”. [...]
Most people who beat a path up the cobbled street of Haworth to the Parsonage go in search of the sisters, Charlotte, Anne and Emily. But this year at least they’ll be leaving with more of a sense of who Branwell, the wayward son, actually was.
If he left no other legacy, at least he created the only surviving portrait of our greatest literary dynasty, and though in a fit of pique and frustration he painted himself out of it, he’ll always be there, in the background, the black sheep of the Brontës. (David Barnett)

The Telegraph reports that the Brontë birthplace is for sale again and describes its current status as a lovely café.

Jane Eyre found the small mug of coffee she drank “with relish” at her daily 5pm meal “revived vitality”, while “a basin of coffee” failed to pull Heathcliff out of his crazed restlessness. Yet both Charlotte and Emily Brontë might be surprised to find their childhood home has been turned into a bustling community café.
The circumstances behind the coffee shop – now called Emily’s – have the makings of a 19th-century novel. “We bought it as a repossession three years ago,” says Mark De Luca, a former building surveyor who had left his job due to illness. “The house had been used as a buy-to-let, split up into bedsits. It was owned by a London property developer who had fallen into difficult times.”
Mark, 33, and his wife Michelle, 32, had been looking for a place to open a coffee shop. When they discovered this terraced brick cottage in the heart of Thornton, a village four miles west of Bradford, “the Brontë element was an added bonus,” says Mark.
They bought the house for £120,000 and spent £70,000 fixing it. “We stripped the property back to a shell and redid it: new flooring, damp works, roof repairs, new heating throughout, extensive repairs to the timber sash windows, new bathroom suite and a full internal decoration,” he says. “We created it from nothing, really.”
The De Lucas also had to apply for planning permission, including consent for change of use to part residential and part commercial, because of the building’s protected status. The Grade II* listed building was built in 1802 and was home to the Brontë family between 1815 and 1820.
What now serves as one of the main parts of the café, with seating for 16 on a variety of vintage school chairs and tables next to an original fireplace, is the former dining room where Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne were born. [...]
“We’ve brought the house back to life. It had fallen by the wayside and now it’s got its own heartbeat,” says Mark. “Thornton used to be pushed aside as Haworth’s poorer relative but now it holds as much importance to the Brontë family.”
He was “no Brontë aficionado” before buying the property, and has learnt about the history of the family and their house through a former owner who ran it as a museum from 1997 to 2006, the Brontë museum in Haworth and the busloads of fans who visit the coffee shop each year. [...]
“Patrick said that his happiest days were spent at Thornton and in Haworth he was a stranger in a strange land,” says Mark. “I lost my mother at a young age and my father at a relatively young age. Being from a broken family, I can relate to that.”
It is partly this background that prompted Mark to start a “suspended coffee” programme at Emily’s, whereby customers can cover the cost of an extra coffee so people who might not be able to afford one can come in for a hot drink. “You never know what’s going on in people’s personal lives,” says Mark. “We’re a social community where people come in for a shoulder to cry on or a laugh to be had.”
Now that Mark and Michelle have two children – Mariella, three, and Theodora, one – they are looking to sell the coffee shop. “We’ve got another business in the village, a hair salon that Michelle runs. It’s come to the point where one has to go, and unfortunately you can’t get rid of kids that easily,” he quips.
He is looking for offers in the region of £250,000 for Emily’s, which brings in £49,000 per year from being open four days a week. Included in the lot is the De Luca family home, a two-bedroom residence attached to the coffee shop with a private entrance, full of original Brontë-era features (07966 662832, delucaboutique.co.uk).
Mark and Michelle are currently looking for a new home in the Thornton area, so they’ll be near enough to keep an eye on the café. “I intend to experience Emily’s from a customer perspective now,” says Mark. “I’m excited for the property’s future, but there’s an element of me that’s sad to see it go. I’ve grown very attached to it. I’ll never own a property like that again.” (Lauren Davidson)

The Independent (Ireland) asks broadcaster Sile Seoige about her favourite things.

The book. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë; an absolute classic. I can still quote from it. As a teenager, I was obsessed by it. (Elle Gordon)

The Guardian has lunch with poet Lemn Sissay.

He’s come straight here from a meeting with some TV people at Channel 4, a “beautiful meeting” he says, if such a thing exists. He’s in talks to create a show or a series about orphans and foster children – he reels off a list: “Cinderella, Batman, Heathcliff, Harry Potter, Jane Eyre, Moses.” The idea will involve linking those characters with kids currently in care. “Families are like clever PR companies, protecting their monopoly of the idea of what it feels to be loved,” he says. “But dysfunction is also at the heart of all families. And a child in care is walking proof of that. People fear it might be contagious.” (Tim Adams)

A columnist from Las Provincias (Spain) thinks women shouldn't ask for permission to be or forgiveness for being feminists and quotes from Jane Eyre. Nick Holland has written a little (as it's actually a vast subject) on The Brontës On Film, Television and in Fiction on AnneBrontë.org.

Read More

Insubmise Mourning

Two new Brontë-related papers:

Cathy’s mourning in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering HeightsJ. Albert Myburgh
Literator; Vol 38, No 1 (2017), 9 pages. doi: 10.4102/lit.v38i1.1359

In Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, illness and death cause characters to foresee, fear and react to other characters’ deaths. In this article, I explore the significance of Cathy’s anticipatory mourning of, and response to, the eventual actual deaths of her ailing father, Edgar, and her sickly cousin, Linton. Core 19th-century perspectives and fears relating to illness and death are both evident and contested in the representation of Cathy’s anxiety and suffering. I also investigate how Cathy’s grief is exacerbated by and affects the behaviour of other characters, notably Nelly, Linton, Heathcliff, Zillah and Hareton. The depiction of these characters’ responses to Cathy’s misery enriches their portrayal, implying that Cathy’s fear and grief are integral to both the novel’s plot and its character development.

Charlotte Brontë : plume insoumise
Isabelle Le Pape
Revista XIX,  v. 1, n. 4 (2017)

Les romans des sœurs Brontë révolutionnèrent les conventions de l’écriture féminine dans l’Angleterre du milieu du XIXe siècle. Le mystère autour du choix de leurs pseudonymes n’y est pas étranger. La plupart des critiques s’interrogeaient alors sur l’identité sexuelle des auteurs, notamment sur celle de Currer Bell, auteur de Jane Eyre (1847). Nourrie par une créativité littéraire intense dès son plus jeune âge, Charlotte Brontë va s’engager dans la voix littéraire avec une opiniâtreté rare, affrontant les représentations attachées à son identité de femme auteur. Nous questionnerons son entrée dans la vie littéraire depuis les juvenilia jusqu’à son dernier roman, Shirley (1849), dans un monde éditorial dominé par des confrères masculins, afin de comprendre en quoi ses écrits ont brisé radicalement les conventions alors de mise.

Read More

Formative Influences

Decatur Daily reviews Claire Harman's biography Charlotte Brontë. A Fiery Heart:

I admit the Brontë family’s relationships leave me livid, as well as the contemporary attitude toward women that made the sisters publish under pseudonyms. This new biography of Charlotte only adds to the irritation I feel when I learn more of the accomplishments of this brilliant woman. There are illustrations of her drawing skills and newfound novelettes and letters that only make it more of a travesty that she was denied her rightful place as a woman of letters. (Jane Davis)

Stuff (New Zealand) quotes author Min Jin Lee and her 2007 book Free Food for Millionaires:

"It really was such a hard book to write because I was trying to write a 19th century-style narration, because those are the kinds of books I love to read," says Lee, who counts George Eliot and the Brontë sisters amongst her formative influences. (Stephen Jewell)

Diario de León (Spain) presents Santiago Posteguillo's new book, El Séptimo Círculo del Infierno:

La inspiración para su obra la busca en grandes nombres de la literatura mundial, como el ruso León Tolstói o las británicas Jane Austen y Charlotte Brontë. (Nayara Batschke) (Translation)

Deadline Hollywood on the film Beast:

Unusually for a genre movie of this kind, the lead character is a woman, which was [Michael] Pearce’s goal from the outset. “I’ve always been struck by how many anti-heroes we have in cinema,” he said, “like Travis Bickle or Michael Corleone. But I can’t think of many anti-heroines, and the ones that we do have come from literature, whether it’s Gone Girl, Cathy from Wuthering Heights, Carrie or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I really struggled to think of a genuine film anti-heroine, and I thought, ‘That’s really weird.’ (Damon Wise)

Greenwich Time traces a profile of new author Finn Murphy:

Murphy's late father, John Cullen Murphy, produced the "Prince Valiant" strip for many years until his death in 2004 and his brother, Cullen Murphy, also wrote for the series.
"It wasn't, say, like the Brontës, where the siblings created an incredibly complex fantasy world,” said sister Caitlin Murphy of Manhattan earlier this year.
“But my parents did value reading. There were always lots of books around, and television viewing was limited. Trips to the library were a regular event. Finally, both my parents were themselves enthusiastic readers, so we grew up in that kind of atmosphere," she said. (Alexandra Villarreal)

A podcast by Proyecto Grado Cero (México) on Wuthering Heights.

Read More

Scholars and Translations

A couple of recent Ph.D. theses focusing on Brontë translations:

Translating Forms of Address in Jane Eyre & North and South
Müller, V.K.
Utecht University
(2016) Faculty of Humanities Theses

Abstract
This thesis deals with translating forms of address, in particular ‘you’, into Dutch, specifically in the 19th-century novels Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. Different relationships between main characters and some minor characters in Jane Eyre are analyzed in four different Dutch translations, dating from 1946, 1980, 1998 and 2014, to find translation strategies that are used for the forms of address. Context and historical background of these translations are taken into account with these analyses. The findings of this thesis suggest that there are multiple possible strategies to translate ‘you’ into Dutch, all of which take the dialogue surrounding the form of address into account, as well as the dialogue setting and the plot of the story. A strategy for translating ‘you’ into Dutch in North and South will be based on the strategies as observed in the various translations of Jane Eyre into Dutch. The proposed strategy will be tested in an annotated translation of some excerpts of Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel.

Tradução e Reprsentação em Wuthering Heights
Fábio Pereira Da Silva
Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz, 2015

Abstract
Based on Carvalho’s (2006) translation proposal and Mendes’ (1971) translation of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1985), this dissertation aims at discussing the differentiation process in translation. According to Carvalho (2006), the translators did not keep the features of the Yorkshire dialect in their translations of Brontë’s work into Portuguese. Instead, they would have chosen not to represent the dialect in such a way that the Brazilian readers could not note the linguistic differences in Joseph’s speeches along the novel. To solve this problem in her thesis, Carvalho (2006) proposes another translation of the Yorkshire dialect in order to recover in a non-standard Portuguese what was “lost” in the previous translations. Her new translation would be able to put the Portuguese-language reader into contact with the English “dialect”. However, when one compares her proposal with Mendes’ (1971) translation, it becomes clear that there is no “dialect erasure” in his version, as she argues. What Carvalho (2006) calls “erasure” is a result of her own representation of what translation would be and of an idealisation of language, dialect and the translator’s role in translation. She makes a representation of the “Yorkshire dialect” different than the one Mendes (1971) does, but she believes to be more “faithful to the original”. However, the analysis of her proposal shows that she needed to transform the “Portuguese” language to try to be “faithful to the original”, creating another differentiations which did not occur in the “original” itself. It is also noted that Carvalho’s (2006) discourse is embedded in ambivalences from her own theoretical viewpoint. Although she sometimes criticises the traditional view of translation, she reiterates it. Based on Derridean deconstruction, we approach this problem by considering translation as a transformation of the source text. This transformation enables the translator to create in another language other texts with new meanings, that is to say, different representations of the so-called original, which is a representation as well. 

Read More

Big Touchstones

Santa Fe New Mexican reviews both A Girl Walks Into a Book by Miranda K. Pennington and The Secret History of Jane Eyre by John Pfordresher:

Readers whose editions of Jane Eyre are worn from repeated perusals may find two recent critical works about Charlotte Brontë worth a look. Miranda K. Pennington and John Pfordresher each see Brontë as anticipating modern feminism, though Pfordresher remains at an academic remove. By contrast, Pennington uses Jane Eyre essentially as a life manual. (...)
In part because of Jane’s evident backbone, Pennington takes as her main premise that Brontë’s protagonist is emotionally relevant in 2017. Then Pennington adds a few pinches of personal attitude and makes Jane and her creator, along with Charlotte’s sisters, Emily and Anne, into behavioral role models. In this way, Pennington combines long-term, deep knowledge of a biographical subject with a certainty that life lessons may be drawn from that subject in the here and now. Her approach is eye-opening, personal, and engaging. (...)
Pfordresher begins some interesting arguments, but doesn’t fully develop them. He maintains, for instance, that Brontë disliked women of color and offers a discussion of Bertha (the madwoman in the attic) to prove this point. However, the more compelling finding may be that Brontë herself related strongly to Bertha even while portraying her unsympathetically. This interior struggle in Brontë’s writing is exactly what Pennington writes about and finds most germane. By comparison, readers may find Pfordresher’s more familiar approach somewhat colorless. He notes that the death of Brontë’s mother and widowhood of her father infiltrate virtually all of her fiction, but leaves one longing for an acknowledgment of the strains the sisters experienced in other family interaction — such as with Branwell. For one thing, he famously removed himself from his painting of the siblings. Pfordresher’s notion that Branwell is the model for Rochester at least provides a welcome (if unconvincing) foray into a less well-trod area. Is this the “secret history” to which he refers?
Nevertheless, both critical approaches are reminders of just how compelling and different was Brontë’s authorial voice. A result of reading either book will be a strong urge to pick up Jane Eyre once again. Even from a high-desert vantage point, there’s simply no turning away from what West Yorkshire and its people meant to the creative psychology of Charlotte Brontë. (Patricia Lenihan)

Pacific Standard interviews Aline Brosh McKenna on her Jane Eyre graphic adaptation (with Ramón K. Pérez), Jane:

Tell me a little bit about how this book got started for you.
I always loved the story of Jane Eyre, it was a big touchstone for me in my early teenhood. I wanted to do some sort of homage to it but I never quite figured out what it could be. And then I adapted a graphic novel [Rust] for Archaia a few years ago, and it just hit me that this would be a wonderful way to adapt sections of it. Because [my version] isn't all of the Jane Eyre story, it's really just the Rochester section—that found a new spin on this character that I loved.
Jane Eyre is, in many ways, a story about the restrictions placed on women in the 19th century. What was it about the story that inspired you to adapt it for the modern day?
I think the essence of Jane Eyre is that she is good, moral, and pure in an impure world. That's the most important thing about the character that I clung to throughout the story. [In terms of what I adapted,] I was compelled by the haves and have-nots of being in the big city, and Jane who doesn't have a lot of money, and wants to be an artist. She comes to the city and has to live within her means but nonetheless develops a relationship with one of the wealthiest men in the city. There's a lot of obvious wish fulfillment there, but also just the social realities that we're dealing with, as opposed to the social realities that the [1847] Jane is dealing with.
So you were interested in a story about Jane bringing the 1 percent down to Earth?
Exactly. Bringing her moral perspective to the 1 percent.  (Read more) (Interview by Katie Kilkenny)

The designer Hannah Nunn shows her home in Hebden Bridge in The Yorkshire Post:

Her refurbished flat looks lovely and is also the perfect location for photographing her growing range of homeware. She and photographer Sarah Mason have just completed a shoot for her latest design, Charlotte’s Garden, which was commissioned by the Brontë Society to celebrate the bicentenary of Charlotte Brontë’s birth. It is made up of the flora in bloom around the Brontë Parsonage in late April, as Charlotte’s birthday was April 21.
Like the rest of Hannah’s designs, which include lighting, wallpaper and fabric, it has appealed to a national and international market.
“The first two rolls of wallpaper went to a lady in America and she was thrilled because she’s a Brontë fan,” says Hannah, who began her making career when she moved to Hebden Bridge after art college and a seven-year spell in Wales. (Sharon Dale)

 महाराष्ट्र (in Hindi) has an article on Emily Brontë (unfortunately with a drawing of Charlotte Brontë).

The Irish Examiner visits Brontë country and York:

Geoff Power visits the North Yorkshire landscape that inspired the Brontë sisters and Bram Stoker, and visits the medieval town of York, a haven for anyone with a sweet tooth.
The mist that exhaled slowly from the remote Upper Heights fanned across the gully that separated Stanbury and Howarth (sic) Moors.
We leaned into the wind as the path twisted uphill towards a distant blackened ruin. We had to pinch ourselves; it was early January and, incredibly, we were alone on this famous stretch of land.
For it was here that the Brontë sisters carved tragic incident and character out of a barren and beautiful landscape – unchanged for thousands of years. In the 1840s, Charlotte, Emily and Anne hitched up their dresses and strolled across this desolate moorland and, in the process, gathered ideas for their much-loved novels and poetry.

A Scarborough heritage walk in Scarborough News:

Leaving the market, head north up Cross Street, and continue into Auborough Street, swinging right into Castle Road, with The Scarborough Arms and Wilson’s Mariners’ Homes ahead. Castle Road swiftly leads to St Mary’s Church. Beyond the car park’s walling, you’ll find Anne Brontë’s grave near Church Lane. (Maureen Robinson)

The Guardian's best UK theatre this week includes:

Jane Eyre
The days when adaptations of classic novels made for dull theatre are long past. Sally Cookson has been leading the charge and her version of Charlotte Brontë’s novel is a pleasure: witty, theatrically inventive yet also faithful to the spirit of the original novel and its psychological underpinnings, as Jane’s conflicted thoughts and inner confusions are given voice by the ensemble.
Hull New theatre, 18-23 September; touring to 21 October. (Lyn Gardner and Judith Mackrell)

This letter published in The Telegraph & Argus is worthy of attention:

I AM very pleased the Visitor Information Centre in Haworth is being taken on by the Brontë Society – i.e. Parsonage – and it’s very easy to blame the council.
Haworth has thrived on the back of the Brontës. It’s also easy to overlook that the Brontës were born in Thornton, a village that has long been forgotten.
If the Visitor Information Centre can be taken on, what hope is there for the Brontë house in Thornton, where Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne were born?
The Brontë house at Thornton was the only place that all the siblings and parents lived together in harmony, as spoken by Patrick Brontë himself.
Andrew Duxury, Riddlesden

The Times's Pedant on English prepositions:

NM Gwynne, in Gwynne’s Grammar, warns that “to give the wrong preposition is illiterate, as ‘different to something’ is wrong and ‘different from something’ is correct”. Again, no explanation or evidence is offered for why a construction used by many great writers should be counted “illiterate”. (One example will do, from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre: “Mr Rochester, as he sat in his damask-covered chair, looked different to what I had seen him look before; not quite so stern — much less gloomy.”) (Oliver Kamm)

The Circleville Herald interviews the author Amy Randall-MacSorley:

Favorite books! My bestest present ever was the year my grandmother bought boxes of Nancy Drew books at an auction and gave them to me. Heaven! I grew up reading everything I could get my hands on. My favorites include Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, The Stand by Steven (sic) King, Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein, Neither Wolf nor Dog by Kent Nerburn, so many, many more. I can’t pick one!” (Jennifer Bahney)

Knoxville News-Sentinel reviews the novel If the Creek Don't Raise by Leah Weiss:

The first person Kate meets is the preacher’s sister, Prudence: “The charcoal lids of her eyes are sunken. Her neck is creased with grime, her nails caked to the quick with dirt, her shapeless dress little more than a rag. One shoe is tied with a strip of cloth to keep the sole from flapping. This is poverty the likes of which I’ve never imagined except in the books of Dickens and the Brontë sisters,” Kate says. (Tina Chambers and Chapter16.org)

Time lists all the references seen in Darren Aronofsky's Mother!:

The isolated house and toxic relationship between Him and Mother is reminiscent of the sort of romance on the moors the Bronte sisters excelled at conjuring up. The heroine takes abuse because of her desperate devotion and is constantly being told to calm her nerves. (After all, women in Victorian times were always being labeled “hysterical.”) (Eliana Dockterman and Eliza Berman)

More on Mother!. Jennifer Lawrence is quoted in CineSerie (France):

La comédienne a fait un rapprochement entre le film et les romans victoriensprésentant des parcours de femmes qui se font peu à peu ôter leur dignité. Jennifer Lawrence lisait d’ailleurs Jane Eyre de Charlotte Brontë au moment du tournage. (Kevin Romanet) (Translation)

Ellen Margulies has a Wuthering Heights Stockholm syndrome in Tennessean:

Oh, Mother Nature, you moody beast. First, you slap a little winter on the tail end of summer. (Things got so gloomy there for awhile I found myself roaming across the moors searching for Heathcliff.)

Hyperemesis gravidarum in The Huffington Post UK:

It is thought that the author Charlotte Brontë might have been suffering from it when she died in 1855 after four months of pregnancy with intractable nausea and vomiting, apparently unable to tolerate food or water. (Rosie Newman)

Filmmaker Magazine interviews the director Clio Barnard:

Filmmaker: You worked with Brazilian cinematographer Adriano Goldman, who has recently shot the Netflix series The Crown. How did the two of you come together on this film? (Tiffany Pritchard)
Barnard: Initially I wanted Mike Eley, who worked with me on The Selfish Giant, but he wasn’t available. With Adriano, part of the reason I wanted to work with him was because he wasn’t from Yorkshire, and I knew he would bring an outsider’s eye to this. I also loved how he filmed Yorkshire in Jane Eyre — that felt like the Yorkshire I know, not the romanticized version that you often see.

Lettera 43 (Italy) on literature and rock:

Non meno celebre un altro amore sfortunato, quello di Kate (sic) e Heathtcliff nel romanzo ottocentesco di Emily Brontë, Cime tempestose. Kate Bush, affascinata dal romanzo, ne trasse una canzone - Wuthering Heights (1978) - che deve il suo successo alla particolare voce quasi da soprano dell’artista e all’atmosfera da fredda brughiera della musica grazie ai notevoli arrangiamenti in forma di ballata e alla chitarra di Ian Bairson. (Annalisa Terranova) (Translation)

Télérama (France) recommends Wuthering Heights 1970:

Les Hauts de Hurlevent (1970). Une adaptation méconnue, hyper-romantique – et très gothique ! – du classique d’Emily Brontë, où le beau ténébreux Heathcliff est incarné par un futur James Bond (Timothy Dalton, alors tout jeunot). ( Cécile Mury, Pierre Langlais and Samuel Douhaire) (Translation)

The Huffington Post (Québec) reviews Lady Macbeth:

Ce qui crée la modernité du film, c'est que William Oldroyd choisit le même parti pris que Nikolaï Leskov: celui de raconter une histoire forte dont on suit le déroulement dramatique avec anxiété et malaise. Pour détourner l'attention, il choisit un décor romantique, une comédienne au regard triste et doux, un paysage qui rappelle Les Hauts de Hurlevent entre la passion et la folie. Ou Les Sœurs Brontë, le film d'André Téchiné en 1979 avec Isabelle Adjani, Isabelle Huppert et Marie France Pisier, même atmosphère de plaines et de vent. William est avant-gardiste. Sa force, c'est de ne ressembler à personne. (Menou Petrowski) (Translation)

A Wuthering Heights-lover and model in La Crónica de Salamanca (Spain); Smart Bitches, Trashy Books reviews Villette (spoiler, she didn't like it).

Read More